Victron Energy SmartSolar MPPT 100V 30 amp 12/24-Volt Solar Charge Controller (Bluetooth)

I purchased a couple 100W Renogy panels for our travel trailer as dry camping opens up a lot of sites for us and I don’t like firing up the generator unless I have to. The panels are deployed on folding stands which is really the only way to get them in the sun in the wooded campgrounds we frequent. I used them the first weekend with the PWM controller that came with the kit. It blinked nicely at me, but even with a voltmeter added to our control panel inside the camper there wasnt really a way to see what was going on. I started looking at adding monitors with shunts, but things start getting rather involved for my particular setup. At home in the off-season the camper is covered and plugged into shore power to keep the batteries up. I realized a few things. First, I’m paying for electricity to charge the batteries when I have two solar panels in a box. Second, the on-board inverter/charger is OK for maintaining batteries, but really lacks the ability to keep them at a full charge as they hover around 13.4-13.6 volts regardless of battery condition and with no temperature compensation. Third, to charge the batteries requires the battery kill switch to be on, meaning I’m also powering gas and carbon monoxide detectors and who knows what other parasitic loads in the camper. Not a monetary issue but things without power on them can’t cause unforeseen issues. I had originally fallen prey to the argument that you’re better off buying another panel vs. paying for an MPPT controller. That works on paper but I realized that I’ll set out 2 panels, but I will never set out 3 or 4. That meant the Victron SmartSolar 75/15 would work nicely and the cost was within my threshold of pain. The need for a separate monitor was also negated. Installation was easy as I was just replacing the PWM controller. My setup is a couple of group 24 lead acid deep cycle batteries with around 160ah. Power is brought into the storage bay of my travel trailer with 4/0 wiring where it splits off to a 3000/6000 pure sine inverter. The Victron is wired into the 4/0 cables which are only about 18” away with 10 gauge cabling. The Zamp plug that came with the camper was replaced with a 10 gauge wire unit, and the 20’ of Renogy cable going to the panels is 10 gauge. The storage bay isn’t heated so it’s within a few degrees of the batteries which are on the tongue. After doing an update the unit automatically selected 12v and the default charge setting was for deep cycle gel batteries. I was initially a little worried that there wasn’t a specific setting for lead acid batteries but the parameters of this option are apparently fine from what I can gather. Equalization is off by default. After installation I zipped the camper cover back up all I have to do now is walk by and log in to see what’s going on, no need to unzip/unlock or interrupt my nap when we’re actually camping to check our state of charge. The attached screenshots were for the first few days. I’m only using one 100W panel as I felt this would be sufficient. The battery bank was at 90% charge the first day (see handy chart) and I was pleased to see that it got fully charged but concerned that my 100W panel was only putting out 35W in full sun. A 100W panel is going to max out somewhere around 70W in the northern hemisphere on the best day in the summer and this was in January, the lowest amount of available solar energy (insolation) of the year. The following days were even worse until I understood that Pmax isn’t your panel’s peak wattage, it’s the peak that the controller will draw from the panel as it manipulates current and voltage to get what it wants. You’re not going to see a Pmax that resembles the published output of your panels unless you have a big load on them (or drained batteries) and maybe not then. This is a layman’s explanation, but if it keeps you from thinking you have a bad panel or connection it’s worth the keystrokes. Of the following three January days the first was sunny, the next was cloudy and the next was rain. The Victron doesn’t care, it still pulled plenty of voltage out of the panel and quickly went into float. It’s like a honey badger. Perhaps more interesting will be what happens when a live load is applied (such as when we’re actually camping and using power). Toggling the electric tongue jack gets an immediate response from the controller as it ramps up to offset what you’re using, then it goes back to putting the battery back to the state of charge that it wants. Comparisons between PWM and MPPT controllers are made in somewhat of a vacuum, you can spend hours reading them. In the real world of RV use the MPPT probably offers more advantages than published. On cloudy and rainy days MPPT wins, but though it’s hard to quantify it also wins when you have partial sun exposure due to your location. I love wooded/private campsites. Most examples use a sunny day with no loads and the PWM can do what the MPPT does, it just takes longer. Let’s say I’m fully charged by noon and at 4pm I decide to take a shower (water pump, exhaust fan, lights). Which one will have a chance of recovering the batteries given the limited amount of remaining daylight? Exactly.

Ive been using this charge controller for over 2.5 years now. This is the best MPPT charge controller I have used. The bluetooth feature is great though it is pretty short range. The app is nice, easy to use, and keeps track of the power generation data and charge state of the batteries. It keeps a 30 day log of things like max daily PV power output, time spent in bulk, absorption, and floating charge modes, and how much energy was generated each day and a lifetime total. To date my small 600w system has generated over 1.5 megawatts of solar energy. A big plus and one of the main reasons I got this unit is that it is passively cooled by fins on the back. No moving parts and no loud fan. Installation was a breeze and I like that you can add more of these in parallel to increase your power generation if needed.

Simple to install, easy to program, and awesome to keep tabs on your power in/out!

Two days in a row. At dusk and still showing 1.5 amps of charge. My PWM controller shows .2 amps.

Solid quality.

I already had one set of panels on a Victron controller. Im very fond of the Bluetooth connectivity to my phone. I can easily see how my system is performing by looking at an app on my phone. So when it came time for another set of panels - Victron controller seemed like a good idea. Still is.

After purchasing a 26$ controller, which seemed to work okay, I decided to upgrade to a bit more professional controller for my simple solar solution so I could have a better view of what was really happening with my 400 watts of solar panels dumping to 2 marine deep cycle batteries. This unit is everything that I expected and much more. The bluetooth interface is amazing. 26$ will get you a charge controller and most likely it will work but with the bluetooth interface (iPhone, IPad, and Mac) on the Victron, I can watch this one work real time along with built in trending. It keeps track of my power generation daily with bar graphs showing peak Watts and Volts per day along with battery charge max and min. I can see, while writing this, I am currently making 301 watts and have been generating for 3h 43m in bulk mode loading the batteries. For me, that is worth the extra money and 5 stars for Victron for making a product that is easy to use and very stable. NOTE: Make sure you size it right. Many different models to chose from to fit your solar size.

Ive been using it for a solar setup in my Subaru Outback. Its been good but not great for name brand electronics. Easy to use unit, but more targeted at contractors and installers rather than DIYers. Theres astoundingly limited tracking for modern hardware and no way to write a customized charging program. Just a handful of dropdowns and numbers to tweak. It also eats up a surprising amount of power on its own (50+Wh/day with PV unplugged and nothing rbeing powered), perhaps due to outdated/low end bluetooth hardware. My watch, on the other hand, regularly passes info back and forth With all this wasted power it doesnt even update my phone with the latest stats for offline viewing. Ive tried to find ways around these limitations, but the software isnt very flexible. I picked a name brand controller assuming their dozens of similar products would have given the software time to mature. I was mistaken and wish I had picked a cheaper option.

Im no electrician, so I didnt know this had to be programmed. I thought I could just connect my solar panels and battery to the controller and it would do the rest. It worked fine like that for two months, then my batteries dropped to 0% with no real reason. Its still a mystery! You have to install the app for the device and input the battery settings via bluetooth. Theres no other way to do it. But after that, its been working great with my setup.

This solar charge controller comes with Bluetooth and is a bit higher in price than the competition, but for good reason. Victron makes high quality products and backs them up with a 5-year warranty and support. You can adjust the amount of power it delivers to your batteries too. I have 800w of panels in a somewhat low light area and Im able to bring in a solid 430w of power at the 15A charge setting (max for this controller) even in low light. Just dont go over the Voltage rating. 100V is a HARD limit, meaning if you surpass it, it will damage the controller. Ill need to upgrade it soon so I can get all the available power from my panels. I also love the integration between the different products and the open source nature of the company. The fact I can use a Raspberry Pi to run Victrons Venus OS and any good quality USB to TTY serial adapter to connect it all is a HUGE win for Victron. The phone app is also well designed and they even offer free logging of your data to their VRM web portal. Ill be coming back to Victron for more stuff in the near future.